


Bindings

by Lisafer



Category: The Immortals - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Forum: Goldenlake, Light Bondage, Peculiar Pairings Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisafer/pseuds/Lisafer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s relatively new to Tortall, and probably in need of a friend… with benefits.</p><p>This was written for the 2010 Peculiar Pairings Ficathon (and won the award for being most in-character!), and I blame its existence entirely on Seori.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bindings

Men can be stupid sometimes. We’d traveled for nearly a mile in light rain after a skirmish with hill raiders a day’s right from Persopolis before he’d revealed that he was injured. Grey-faced and slumped over from wasting magic when we had things accounted for? That was expected, I’d learned, traveling with a powerful mage. But wounded? I hadn’t seen him enter the fray at all.

“Camp!” I barked out, feeling a bit of a thrill at the way the Riders jumped to do what I commanded. I suppose it wasn’t right, to be happy with being in charge. Thayet would say it was a bad trait in leadership, but I was just relieved that these people taller, bigger, and sometimes older than me actually listened instead of rolling their eyes and thinking they knew better than me.

It’s hard to be in charge when you’re only twenty years old. But I suppose it could be worse. Thayet became queen at twenty, after all. 

Numair, though… no one would listen to him because he was slumped over his mount’s neck, looking grey and wrung out. I was worried that he would vomit; people don’t jump to follow the commands of a man who throws up after battle, whether it’s from shedding blood or overextending magic. 

“Come with me,” I said to him, once I’d tethered my pony to a tree, giving her plenty of grass to chomp on. I tied his nearby, as well. I instructed him to sit down while I took my packs off of Cinnamon’s back. The canvas of my tent was used as a makeshift bag, surrounding all my gear and holding it in one large bundle. “I’ve got to set this up before I can patch you up. The downpour should begin any time now.” I told him, and set myself to my work.

He was even paler by the time the tent was up. I took the rest of my supplies into the tent and gestured – impatiently, I suppose – for him to follow me inside.

“Sit,” I said, throwing my bedroll onto the floor. He did, and I pulled out the little healer’s kit the Lioness had given me for my birthday. It had everything I needed to dress minor wounds – or major ones, if someone needed to hold on long enough for a healer. 

He rolled up his sleeve – the one that had become drenched in blood over the last few minutes – and grimaced. “It looks worse than it feels,” he muttered.

“I’ve seen worse,” I replied. I took out a linen cloth and a tiny bottle of alcohol and started to clean the slash on his upper arm. 

His jaw clenched shut, and a stream of air hissed through his teeth. “Mithros, Mynnos and Shakith!” he swore, wincing. “That stings!”

“I thought you were a scary, tough black robe mage,” I taunted, tossing aside the soiled linen. “Alanna said you were useful in a battle.”

“Did you not see the illusion spell I cast that confounded the hill men and gave you a chance to strike?”

“Of course I didn’t. It was an illusion spell.”

“Believe me,” he said, smiling charmingly as I smoothed salve over the broken skin, “you would’ve had more of a struggle had I not been there.”

“And why are you with us, anyway?” I asked, scowling. “Thayet and Alanna said I should come fetch you, but never told me what you were doing or why.”

“It’s a secret.” His dark eyes twinkled. “If you must know, I was with my mother.”

“In Persopolis?” Alanna told me he was from Tyra.

“No, we met at the border. I flew from there to Persopolis. The last thing I needed was Carthaki spies seeing me in Tyra, or traveling from Tyra.”

“Don’t the Carthaki spies know you can shapeshift?”

He shook his head. “There are a lot of things about me that Ozorne doesn’t know.”

It bothered me that he knew the Carthaki emperor by name. Which was ridiculous, since I’d always called Thayet by her name, and she was a monarch, too. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been friends with an emperor, nor me with an exiled princess.

“How was your mother?” I asked, sounding almost false in casualness. 

“She misses me, and makes me feel terrible for not being able to go home to her. Doesn’t your mother do the same?”

“My mother is long dead. As is my brother and probably the rest of my family.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

My eyes flicked up to his as I wrapped a new linen bandage around his bicep. “Why should you be sorry? They died for our people. Is there anything as important?”

“Living for your people.”

It was nice to meet someone who understood. “And do you live for your mama?” The way it came out sounded like a taunt, but it was not meant to be.

Numair’s cheeks tinged pink. “She’s important to me.” It wasn’t defensive, but matter-of-fact. 

“Is she proud of you?”

“Of course,” he said, smiling at me. “I do wish I were free to spend more time with her, though. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I left for Carthak as a boy.”

I knotted the bandage and rolled his sleeve down. “You’re all set.”

“If some of your family were alive, Buri,” he began thoughtfully, “would you find a way to meet with them?”

I shook my head. “My past is behind me. It’s like you with your name. You got rid of something that bound you to your previous life.”

“Not quite,” he pointed out. “I had to change my name because there were certain people who wanted to find me.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t want to be found, either.” I remembered the whispered words of a Doi woman, years ago at the Roof of the World. “Maybe I knew that there was nothing left for me in Sarain – not even with my clan still there.”

“You’re incredibly hard for such a young woman.”

“We’re practically the same age.”

“I feel like you’ve lived two lives for my one.” He frowned and untangled his crossed legs. They took up most of my tent-space.

“Maybe I have.” It wasn’t something I liked to talk about, experiencing life in a war-torn nation. I’d seen some of the worst that humanity had to offer – crimes of hatred, assassinations, bodies piled up higher than my head. “But the only thing from those days that I’m still bound to is Thayet.”

He tilted his head, studying me. “I didn’t realize…”

“Not like that, you fool.” I scowled, shoving the salve and extra bandages back into their leather pouch. “I was sworn to protect her, when I was only thirteen.”

“You’ve been fighting that long?”

“I’m K’miri.”

He seemed to accept that explanation. “Was it difficult, adapting to Tortall?”

I shrugged. “Sarain’s different, but there are enough similarities. The nobles are a lot nicer, though.”

Numair snorted. “Nicer than Carthak, too.”

“I was told that you angered the emperor.”

“Yes.”

I snorted. “No one ever told me how few mages actually have a lick of common sense.”

“No one’s ever told me about cantankerous little warrior women at all.”

“Alanna wouldn’t like you talking that way about her,” I said with an amused snort. 

He smiled – a rather dashing smile, at that – and stood up. He had to stoop a bit beneath the ceiling of the tent. “You’re charming, in a wicked sort of way.”

“I figured you for the type who’d like wicked women,” I said with a grin, rising to my feet. Horse lords, but he was tall. I somehow hadn’t noticed it before, more concerned about getting Alanna’s friend to the palace than I was about his looks. 

“I do.” His voice was low and a little raspy. Looking up, I saw an expression of mischief on his face. “Exactly how wicked are you?”

“I’m not sure you could handle me,” I told him. 

“Are you sure?” He moved quickly, and before I knew to react he had wrapped a linen bandage around my hands, binding my wrists together. 

I glared up at him. “George told me you knew sleight of hand tricks.”

He leaned down, his mouth tantalizingly close to mine. When he spoke I could feel his hot breath on my lips. “But do you like it?”

I pulled at the binding, impressed at how tight he’d drawn it in such a brief amount of time. “You’re not my type,” I complained.

“And you’re not mine.”

I hooked my leg around the back of his knee and yanked, tipping him forward. I held my bound hands aloft, and when he crashed into me – his face planted against my breast – I dropped my arms around his neck. His mouth was hot against the damp cotton of my shirt, and he made no move to stand up. 

His lips moved against me and his teeth nipping at the buttons. “What, you’re not even going to kiss me first?” 

He moved swiftly again, his mouth claiming mine in a searing kiss. “Is this better?” He murmured against me.

“Much,” I replied, and kissed him again.


End file.
